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THREE STUDIES 
IN EDUCATION 



The Spelling Question: 

Composition for Elementary Schools: 

Value of the Motor Activities 
in Education. 



BY EDWARD R, SHAW, PH.D. 




" ."".! . 1 . 



E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 



.:.:..; :• .". B : ¥sl 



THREE STUDIES IN 
EDUCATION: 

THE SPELLING QUESTION 

COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 

VALUE OF THE MOTOR ACTIVITIES 
IN EDUCATION 



BY 
/ 

EDWARD R. SHAW, Ph.D. 

Dean of the School of Pedagogy, New York University 










NEW YORK AND CHICAGO: 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO. 



.3* 



Copyright, 1899. 
" $'\ By E. L. Kellogg & Co., New York. 



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10 
11. 
12 
13 
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Fitch's Art of Questioning 

Fitch's Art of Securing Attention 

Sidgwick's Stimulus in School 

Yonge's Practical Work in School 

Fitch's Improvement in the Art of Teaching 

Gladstone's Object Teaching 

Huntington's Unconscious Tuition 

Hughes's How to Keep Order 

Quick's How to Train the Memory 

Hoffman s Kindergarten Gifts 

Butler's Argument for Manual Training 

Gr o?f's School Hygiene 

How to Conduct the Recitation 

Carter's Artificial Production of Stupidity in School 

Kellogg's Life of Pestalozzi 

Lang's Basedow : His Life and Educational Work 

Lang's Comenius : His Life and Educational Work 

Kellogg's The Writing of Compositions 

Allen's Historic Outlines of Education 

Phelps's Life of David P. Page 

Lang's Rousseau and his Emile 

Lang's Horace Mann : His Life and Educational Work 

Rooper's The Chxd : His Studies and Occupations 

Rooper's Drawing in Infant Schools 

Dewey's Educational Cref.d 



TWO COPIES ftECCtVEO* 






Cbe Spelling Question* 




URING the past three years four separate 
investigations upon the spelling problem 
have been made in the School of Peda- 
gogy, New York university. Two of 
these investigations were made by myself 
and the other two were carried forward 
under my immediate direction. The object of these 
investigations was to see whether some new knowledge 
might not be gained that would render more specific 
guidance in the teaching of spelling. Other investigators 
have been working on this problem, but no reports of 
those investigations have come under the writer's notice 
except that of Miss Adelaide Wyckoif on " Constitutional 
Bad Spellers" in the Pedagogical Seminary for December, 
1893, and that made in Sioux City, the returns of which 
were published in the Iowa Normal Monthly and also in 
The School Journal for May 16, '96. Miss Wyckoff made 
tests upon an extremely small number of spellers, who 
were mature pupils with some power of introspection. 
Her study is valuable for its suggestiveness. 

The investigation made at Sioux City, starting out 
with the proposition that spelling exercises as usually 
conducted appeal to three kinds of memory, namely, 
that of form thru the eye, that of sound thru the ear, 
that of muscular resistance thru muscular effort in 
writing, sought to determine which of these three kinds 



4 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

of memory is most potent in learning to spell, so that in 
teaching spelling the greater measure of success might 
be attained by making the appeal chiefly to that kind of 
memory. 

In the Sioux City investigation, seven hundred and 
forty-three pupils were tested with meaningless words of 
five and ten letters, as, grynaphisk, halep-mirus, so using 
these words as to appeal to the eye, to the ear, and to 
the eye and ear together. 

Interpretation of Investigations. 

In the four investigations already referred to, between 
five and six thousand children have been tested, and al- 
tho for the sake of greater accuracy and the further veri- 
fication of the data collected, full reports of those inves- 
tigations will not be made for some time to come, yet 
some of the conclusions may be set forth for guidance in 
teaching spelling. In two of those studies the interpre- 
tation of the returns is so different from the conclusions 
reached in the Sioux City investigation as to warrant, in 
the interest of pedagogy, not only an examination of those 
conclusions, but to question in some degree the funda- 
mental proposition underlying that investigation. 

The auditory tests in the Sioux City investigation were 
made by naming each letter of the meaningless combin- 
ations spoken of, and then directing pupils to write down 
the letters of the word in the order given. 

The visual tests were made by exposing each word, prin- 
ted in large letters upon a card. Upon removal of the 
card, the word printed thereon was written down by the 
pupils. 

For the audo-visual test, the pupils named in concert 
each letter of the word from the printed card held be- 
fore them, after which the command was given to write. 

In the tabulation of the returns the averages resulting 



THE SPELLING QUESTION, 5 

therefrom were as follows : for the auditory test 44.8 — # 
for the visual test 66.2-f and for the audo-visual test 73.7*. 
It will be noticed that the lowest percentage of the letters 
recalled was by the auditory test ; that with the visual 
test 21.4$ more letters were recalled ; and that when the 
auditory test and the visual were combined, 7.6 £ more 
letters were recalled than by the visual alone, and 29 £ 
more than by the auditory test. 

The conclusion drawn from these percentages was stated 
in the following words : " This seemed to point to the 
conclusion that to the average pupil the appeal in spelling 
should be made chiefly to the eye." 

Do not the percentages resulting from the three kinds 
of test, I wish to inquire, seem rather to indicate that the 
appeal should be made to that combination of powers which 
gives the highest percentage of correct results, viz., the 
audo-visual? If an appeal to the eye and the ear together 
gives 7.6 per cent, better returns, than an appeal to the 
eye alone, how can it be reasoned that the appeal should 
be made chiefly to the eye? 

But an important factor is overlooked if the audo-visual 
test which was given to the seven hundred and forty- 
three pupils in Sioux City is regarded merely as a test of 
eye and ear combined. That important factor is the motor 
apparatus which operates in speech. 

Appeal to Several Senses. 

Learning to spell is largely a matter of association, and, 
therefore, in teaching spelling the more sense avenues from 
which elements may be complicated, the stronger are the 
resulting associations formed and the more easily will 
those associations rise under call, for the simple reason 
that there are more clues for their revival. The greater 
the number of complicated elements, the easier will the 
association rise in consciousness under recall and the 



6 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

easier will it be to hold it there for reproduction. The 
greater part of the difference of 7.6$ between the visual 
and the audo-visual tests I should rather be inclined to 
regard as representing a gain contributed by the motor 
apparatus of speech which was employed in the audo-visual 
test. In this audo-visual test, or to name the test cor- 
rectly — the visual-auditory-motor test — the eye, the ear, 
and the motor speech apparatus are working almost sim- 
ultaneously and in harmony. Can there be any question 
that under such conditions the proper association of 
letters in words is not stronger than by the use of only 
one or two of the senses involved ? 

In one of the four investigations already referred to, 
over 2,000 children were tested with nonsense combina- 
tions of from three to ten letters in length. In the first 
part of the investigation 140 visual presentations of these 
were made. From thirty to forty pupils were tested at 
a time, and the tests were so divided as to make no fa- 
tiguing demands upon the pupils. Each child wrote down 
what he could recall of the 140 printed cards held up be- 
fore him for a given length of time. The pupils were re- 
quested not to move their lips when looking at the com- 
binations ; and altho we impressed upon them as strongly 
as we could that they must not use their lips, we found 
that tho they started out with very commendable effort 
not to do this, they would soon lapse into the use of their 
lips. When another strong appeal not to use the lips 
was made, many cases came under our observation of 
children who, while inhibiting the use of their lips, were 
moving their hands or a finger as if telling off the letters 
silently. After repeated observations by those who assis- 
ted in making the tests, the conclusion was reached that 
at least ninety per cent, of all the children tested lapsed into 
aiding themselves by using their lips — unless stror gly ap- 



THE SPELLING QUESTION. 7 

pealed to when each combination was held up. This laps- 
ing, moreover, occurred in schools where the spelling had 
Leen taught almost wholly by appealing to the eye. So 
strong a tendency as this to use a motor accompaniment 
is significant in suggesting that the motor speech appar- 
atus be turned to use in learning to spell, not that it be re- 
pressed, thus making, I believe, additional difficulties not 
only for the pupil but also for the teacher. 
Oral Spelling. 

Spelling is a very arbitrary matter, and yields to but 
slight extent to the logical and causal helps which are 
employed in teaching other subjects. Motor elements 
are important elements in association, and with so arbi- 
trary a subject as English spelling every aid in strength- 
ening the association should be employed. From the ex- 
periments made and the verification of the conclusions in 
actual school application, I am convinced that the motor 
apparatus used in speech should be employed to a large 
extent in teaching spelling. All preparation of words to 
be written should be oral preparation, and very careful 
preparation at that, particularly in the second, third, 
fourth, fifth, and sixth school years. Writing should he the 
final test, but only after careful preparation orally. And 
in that preparation the letters should be grouped into syl- 
lables and the syllables pronounced according to the 
method of a generation or two ago. The poor results now 
so common in spelling would thereby be greatly bettered. 
In the end, time would be gained, and the pupil rendered 
better able to help himself. The method of leading the 
pupil to grasp the word as a whole thru the eye has made 
confused spellers of large numbers of children. With 
some, however, it has produced excellent results. 

The tests show that in the appeal to the eye many 
children seized the first and the last letters of the 



,8 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

word, but left out some of the middle letters or mixed 
these. 

It would seem, then, that the naming of the three, four, 
or five letters, as the case may be, that constitute a syl- 
lable, and then attaching a name to these grouped letters, 
thus binding them into a small unity, would aid the pupil 
to a remarkable degree. The putting of these small 
unities together into the larger word unity, gives the 
pupil a synthetic power to this end and makes his 
progress more rapid and easy on the long road he must 
traverse in learning to spell. 

But this is a return to an old method, it will be re- 
marked. It is taking what was good from an old method 
and using it as a part of a broader and better method 
than is now generally employed in our schools. Written 
spelling is not to be neglected, but it is to come last, after 
careful oral preparation. 

The Method of Written Spelling Questioned. 

For the last two decades or more this method has been 
almost wholly repudiated as an aid in learning to spell* 
The false notion that the eye is the avenue to which to 
appeal in teaching spelling began to obtain at that time a 
very firm hold upon the minds of teachers. Institute lec- 
turers made strong efforts to inculcate this idea and their 
efforts met with large success. As much greater power 
was imputed to the eye in this regard, than it actually has, 
the time devoted to learning to spell naturally became 
shortened, and the spelling lesson passed from the place 
of prominence in the program of work to a place of subor- 
dinate importance, and quite generally the spelling lesson 
was merely the writing of words selected from the read- 
ing lessons, with repeated drill in writing upon words in- 
correctly spelled. 

The larger knowledge which has resulted from the great 



THE SPELLING QUESTION. 9 

development of psychological study of recent years leads us 
to see that the teachers of a generation and a half ago were 
not so wholly wrong after all in their teaching of spelling. 
They were right as far as they went, but they did not go 
far enough. Those who repudiated the old method and 
made the appeal almost wholly to the eye, were right in 
holding that for most pupils the eye is a stronger sense 
avenue of appeal than the ear when only these two are 
considered. But the motor speech apparatus was not re- 
garded as a factor in the matter. 

It is true that in testing any hundred pupils according 
to the methods which are supposed to determine whether 
they are eye-minded or ear-minded, we shall find a large 
percentage of the hundred eye-minded and only a small 
percentage markedly ear-minded. But it will also be found 
that a very large percentage will give good returns to the 
tests for determining eye-mindedness and also to the 
tests for determining ear-mindedness, with the returns 
usually in favor of the test for eye-mindedness. In every 
grade of pupils, it must be remembered, such differences 
will be found. The method in teaching spelling should 
therefore be broad enough to appeal fully to these differing 
aptitudes in different pupils and also broad enough to 
appeal to those pupils in which these aptitudes are more 
nearly balanced. The method already suggested is broad 
enough to make this varied appeal. 

In the article giving account of the Sioux City investi- 
gation the opinion was also advanced that accurate ob- 
servation should have some bearing upon correct spelling. 
Tests were also made in the Sioux City investigation upon 
149 good spellers and 149 poor spellers to see which were 
the best observers when ten different articles were exposed 
at the same time to each pupil and the pupils afterward 
asked to write the names of the objects. Because it was 



10 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

found that the good spellers were the best observers, it 
cannot be inferred from such a test that poor spelling "is 
largely due to inability to picture the word correctly and 
promptly in the mind's eye." Good spellers are good ob- 
servers as a rule because they possess better all-round 
mental capacity than poor spellers. Our tests showed us 
that the poor spellers in their power to learn to spell new 
words were from a year to a year and a half behind the 
good spellers, taking, of course, children of the same age. 
Training the power of observation thru nature study has 
been recommended as aiding the pupil in learning to 
spell. Such a recommendation has no warrantable founda- 
tion, and its employment would prove of little if any 
specific value in aiding the pupil to spell ; nor will efforts 
made to develop the so-called eye-mindedness avail much. 
Spelling is largely a matter of association, and the eye, 
the ear, and the motor must be appealed to so as to pro- 
duce the strongest complication of sensory elements. 
Care then in the right kind of oral preparation, with con- 
siderable oral test before writing, training pupils to build 
up words by using the small unities into which words can 
be divided, is a method of teaching spelling productive of 
the best all-round results. 




€be Sssentiaia of Gnglisb Composition 
for elementary Schools. 

NDER the essentials of English composi- 
tion for elementary schools I shall com- 
prehend every means that contributes to 
give a pupil the fullest and freest com- 
mand of English it is possible to give in 
the elementary school. More can be done, I am confident, 
than has yet been generally attained in this direction. 
The error of the past has been the loss of time and the 
waste of effort in teaching English from its formal phase, 
and largely as an end in itself. 

Correct Spelling. 
The first essential of English composition to be secured 
in the elementry school is correct spelling. There is 
abundant evidence on every hand to show that the 
method generally pursued to-day in teaching spelling is 
a method which does not give satisfactory results. Some 
spelling can, of course, be taught incidentally, but in so 
difficult and arbitrary a matter as English spelling a de- 
finite time must be set apart for it in the school-program, 
when spelling shall be pursued as a regular exercise. 

The first point to be considered in this connection is 
the gradation of words. The plan of leaving to the judg- 
ment of the teacher the selection of words for her grade 
is altogether too haphazard a one. This plan may, to 



12 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

some extent, be permitted, but it ought not to be used 
exclusively, for under such conditions there is very- 
little guidance as to the vocabulary, that is, its extent, or 
what range of words shall be given in the various grades. 
With such a plan, it is difficult to know what -the omis- 
sions are. I believe, therefore, in a carefully-selected 
list of words, suited to the various school grades. Such 
a list could be determined very easily in any school system 
by simple investigation. There are, I believe, words 
that may best be learned in the second grade and words 
that should be learned in the fifth grade, and so on for 
the various grades. A list of this kind would include 
words which children are likely to miss, and words which 
may be easiest acquired in the various grade periods of 
school life. Such a list would constitute the best kind of 
spelling book, and, one moreover, which ought to be made 
by every system of schools. In the absence of such a 
list I stand for a spelling book and regular work in it, 
using this book, of course, in such a way as to connect 
the spelling lessons closely with the demands of the other 
work in language. 

But after we have determined the collection of words, 
a question of great importance is the way the pupil is to 
be led to learn those words. The appeal to the eye in 
learning to spell, which supplanted an old method growing 
out of the best judgment of decades of repeated test by 
schoolmasters, is a method which the best pedagogy of 
to-day cannot sanction as a complete method of teaching 
spelling. If we are to obtain better results in spelling — 
that which I put as the first essential of the elements of 
English composition — we must adopt some of the wisdom 
which showed itself in the method of the old schoolmas- 
ter, and which we for the past generation and a half have 
thrown aside. If we require the pupil, in learning new 



COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 13 

words, to study these first orally, pronouncing each word 
at the start, then each syllable and the syllables cumu- 
latively, and ending with the pronunciation of the whole 
word, we are appealing to more avenues of mental ap- 
proach, and are, therefore, making easier and firmer the 
network of associations out of which that word is to rise 
when the pupil summons it. In such a way, we are appeal- 
ing to the eye, to the ear, and to that part of the motor me- 
chanism which is connected with speech. We have here, 
then, the aid of three strong sensory avenues instead of 
one ; as, for instance, when we make the appeal to the 
eye. After the pupil has prepared his lesson in this man- 
ner, we may then bring in the written practice upon this 
basis of preparation, and employ again the eye and com- 
bine with this the motor mechanism which lies in the 
hand and arm. 

Some one will say that such oral preparation, namely, 
first the distinct pronunciation of the word, then spelling 
it by syllables, pronouncing distinctly each syllable, and 
pronouncing the syllables cumulatively, and then pro- 
nouncing the word as a whole at the end, is very slow and 
tedious work. And yet, there is economy in it ; great 
economy, for not only are the associations more firmly 
and more quickly built up in this way, not only are we 
putting into the pupil's possession a power to analyze 
new words, into their syllabic components, and to 
center his attention upon the few elements which, in 
the new word, differ from any word he has previously 
learned — a matter of great economy in itself — but we are 
aiding him in reading and giving him the best possible 
practice in clear and distinct articulation and pronuncia- 
tion, a matter now considerably neglected in our schools. 

If we would give the vocal organs training, we must give 
them work to do in clear and exact articulation and 



14 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

enunciation. There is no other exercise in the school- 
room comparable to this oral preparation of spelling 
lessons and the pronunciation of each syllable in the man- 
ner which I have indicated to secure these most desirable 
results. With such a mechod I believe that very -little time 
would need to be given to spelling in the seventh 
and eighth years of the grammar grades — the time 
when it is generally found so necessary to spend as 
much time as possible in spelling drill. Thus, time may 
be saved in those grades to devote to the rules for spelL 
ing and to the etymology of words. Etymology should 
not, however, be taken up in the routine and uninteresting 
manner so common, and which calls for not much else 
than sheer, dull effort in verbal memory. It should be 
treated in connection with composition, and should serve 
to add variety to the pupil's language study. To lead in- 
to this, begin with words with some point of interest in 
their history, or those words whose derivation is easy to be 
traced, as : Fort-night, good-bye, furlong, topsy-turvy, vol- 
cano, mountebank, calculate, astonished, sincere, trivial, 
capricious, charlatan, etc., and then gradually work out to 
the more formal analysis of words. All this need not follow 
any alphabetically arranged list of roots, prefixes, and 
suffixes, but advantage should be taken of the recurring 
occasions when the pupil's attention may be directed to 
words that become the center of opportune interest. By 
leading the pupil to seek out for himself the connection 
of thought, and also to trace those connections in analy- 
sis for which a reason may be given, he acquires a power 
to help himself, and an interest is awakened, because more 
phases of mental activity are thereby aroused, and the 
study lifted out of dull, spiritless, mechanical memory. 
Feeling for English. 
The second essential to be secured is what I may term 



COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, 15 

"feeling for English." If I were required to make a 
choice between technical knowledge of English and what 
I may term "feeling for English," I should unhesitat- 
ingly choose the latter. This " feeling for English " is a 
subtle sense, transcending psychological analysis, and 
leading those who possess it to use English with an ap- 
preciation of the true spirit of the language. How, then, 
shall we develop in pupils this " feeling for English " ? 
We may do this by giving them selections from the mas- 
ters of English literature, and requiring that these selec- 
tions be learned by heart, so that pupils may be able to 
repeat them, and to transcribe them : In every grade from 
the first school year thru the eighth school year, certain 
standard poems, selected with reference to the emotional 
status and intellectual appreciation of the pupil, should 
be memorized. At the very least, half a dozen poems 
for each year. Children derive pleasure from learning 
and repeating the best literature, as it meets a natural 
want in satisfying their sense of rhythmic expression. 
They may not recall all this literature in later years, but 
it leaves behind it that subtle aesthetic sense of "feeling 
for English." 

The selections of the pieces which are to be memorized 
involves a very large and a very important question, 
namely, their ethical import ; but that is a question aside 
from the purpose of this article. There should be, then, 
for each grade, a certain number of carefully selected 
poems which each pupil should memorize, and with such a 
degree of perfection that he could rise and repeat the 
poem or take pen and paper and transcribe it correctly as 
to spelling, punctuation, capitals, and form. 

In the sixth, seventh and eighth school years pupils 
should be given an opportunity to choose from a small 
collection the poems they would prefer to memorize. For 



16 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

m stance, if six poems were required of each pupil in any 
of these years, twelve poems should be given him to read 
and select his quota from in the sixth school year, eigh- 
teen poems in the seventh year, and twenty-four in the 
eighth school year. The object of this plan is to provide 
for the child's individuality of choice as influenced by his 
individuality of experience, and by his individuality of 
emotional tone. 

But poems in themselves are not sufficient to develop 
this " feeling for English." Many of our courses of study 
furnish lists of poems that are to be memorized in the 
several grades, but I do not recall a course of study where 
excerpts of fine prose are required to be memorized. In 
the days of a generation ago this "feeling for English" 
was developed by those splendid selections of oratory 
which boys were required to memorize and speak at the 
rhetorical exercises then periodically held. We must not 
forget, in the multitude of newer things pressing upon 
our attention, all the good in the past. Hence, there 
should be provided in each grade a number of prose se- 
lections suited to the understanding and capacity of the 
pupils, each a unit in itself. The pupils should memorize 
these excepts so as to be able to repeat them orally, or to 
transcribe them, as has been recommended with reference 
to the poems. 

Principles and Usages of Composition. 

The third essential is this : The formularizabion of the 
principles and usages of English composition shall come 
to the pupil by easy inference after abundant exercises in 
the use of English, and not be forced upon him by defi- 
nitions, illustrated by a few formal examples. 

What is needed is ability to use English well, and not 
principally an acquaintance with its formal aspects. 

The regarding of the formularies of composition as the 



COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENT AR Y SCHOOLS. 17 

principal thing, and the inability to see the larger thing, 
the real thing, to which the formularistic statements 
must ever be secondary is where the cause of our failure 
in teaching English lies. 

Most text-books, official syllabi, and examinations em- 
phasize the formal aspects of composition, instead of 
showing how they may be subordinated. The teacher is 
thus misled, and her attention directed to these things 
as the end of her teaching. And it is not at all sur- 
prising that she comes at length to rest in the opinion 
that the ablity of her pupils to set forth thesa things 
in examination is the test and proof of her success in 
teaching. My objection, the reader will recognize, is not 
a new one. These formularistic statements and the ex- 
amples used to illustrate them become ends and are pur- 
sued as ends, and thus the teaching of composition 
becomes dry and barren of results. 

The fundamental requisite, then, from first to last, in 
the teaching of English composition in the elementary 
school is abundant and continued expression of the pupil's 
thought and feeling growing out of some activity, some 
experience, some observation, some intercourse, some im- 
aginative construction, on the part of the pupil. 

What is to be insisted on, then, is some positive 
underlying content in the pupil's mind which he is led to 
express either in oral or in written language, and out of 
this expression all the formal aspects of composition are 
to issue. The formularies are not to be omitted. They 
do not, however, lead the way ; they are not the impor- 
tant ends, but are subordinated to the real thing, the es- 
sential thing, that is, something expressed. 

Upon this expresions, as a basis, we may teach the more 
obvious grammatical and rhetorical matters incidentally 
In the lower grades many phases of capitalization and 



18 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

punctuation, the formation of plurals, possessive cases, 
the forms of comparison, correct forms of verbs, etc., etc., 
may be taught, the teacher shaping the composition ex- 
ercises so that sufficient opportunities shall arise to reveal 
to the pupil the necessity for such knowledge, and also to 
give him sufficient practice in using it correctly. Dicta- 
tion exercises may be employed as one means of giving 
practice in correct forms, but each piece, so dictated, 
should be some composition exercise which the class as a 
whole has criticised, corrected, and amended. Each pu- 
pil has, then, some special interest in it and in its correct 
reproduction. 

Letter writing, to be taken up toward the end of the 
third school year, will also afford another means toward 
the accomplishment of the ends just mentioned. Here, 
however, care must be exercised, that there shall be con- 
tent in the pupil's mind before he is required to compose 
a letter. Business letters first, which are orders, then the 
replies to these ; next may follow letters of inquiry, of 
direction, of application, of information, etc., thus gradu- 
ally enlarging the scope to letters of friendship, invitation, 
acknowledgment, etc. 

I have insisted that in all composition work there 
shall be content in the pupil's mind when he is asked to 
compose ; in other words that bricks shall not be required 
without straw. 

Fortunately, to-day, nature study and science work fur- 
nish something tangible and near at hand for the pupil 
to express ; and therefore as much composition writing as 
possible should grow out of nature study and science work. 
History study may also be used to this end. 

While, however, the pupil easily finds something to say 
when required to write out his observations and knowl- 
edge gained from nature study and science work, we 



COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENT AR Y SCHOOLS. 19 

must not lose sight of the fact that even with a great 
amount of such writing he would remain deficient in skill 
and a knowledge of certain important matters of English. 

By writing out descriptions of his observations in nature 
study and of his experiments in science, he learns to ar- 
range his thoughts ; to analyze out more fully his vague 
general ideas ; he enlarges his vocabulary, and he acquires 
facility in setting forth his thought. 

But to lead the pupil thru this kind of composition to 
an appreciation of sequence and transition of thought as 
affected thru sentence construction, and to lead him thru 
this kind of writing to an appreciation of literary form 
and unity, would prove a most difficult undertaking ; and 
to seek to accomplish this upon nature study and science 
composition would be to disregard a law of mental econ- 
omy. Mental economy points out a different plan. 

The appreciation of literary form and unity, and a 
knowledge of the various ways that language may be em- 
ployed to secure sequence, transition, and connection of 
thought, is best attained by reading to pupils well chosen 
literary selections within their appreciation and under- 
standing, and then calling for the reproduction of these, 
sometimes orally, but principally in writing, especially in 
the higher grades. Such reproduction exercises should 
be given in the third school year and be continued in each 
succeeding year. There is, however, one danger to be 
guarded against in this, and that is a haphazard and un- 
skilled choice of selections. Here pedagogical insight 
is most requisite. That so little use has been made of 
the reproduction is due to the difficulty of finding proper 
selections. Permit me to remark, however, that these 
may be found, and they may be found in number and 
variety sufficient. 

The use of the written reproduction will afford excel- 



20 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

lent opportunity for the careful treatment of the para- 
graph ; not with reference to a definitive, formal treat- 
ment of what the paragraph is, and the rules for the for- 
mation of paragraphs, but a knowledge of how to shape 
and constitute a paragraph in writing. 
Technical Grammar. 

The next essential is a knowledge of the grammatical 
analysis of sentences— this leading to a knowledge of 
the parts of speech and the grammatical rules for their 
collocation. Good English may be acquired without a 
knowledge of technical grammar, but there is no plan 
yet at hand to guide teachers in securing such a result ; 
and were there one a longer time would be needed to give 
the pupil a reliable knowledge of correct forms of English 
than is required when grammatical analysis and grammat- 
ical collocation of the part of speech are taught. One who 
has a knowledge of the grammatical structure of language 
possesses many advantages over one who has not this knowl- 
edge, tho the latter may use English with a fair degree 
of correctness. I need not enter here into a discussion 
of the educational value of the study of grammar. Its 
educational value alone would entitle it to a place in the 
elementary school curriculum, even if it did not equip 
the pupil with knowledge directly available in the use of 
English. 

The study of grammatical analysis may well be begun 
in the sixth school year and carried on thru the seventh 
and eighth years. In this grammatical analysis, it is far 
better not to put into the pupil's hands an elementary 
grammar, with sentences selected from all the four wind- 
of literature and the remainder made to order — a collec- 
tion of detached sentences which the pupil cannot relate 
to any piece of literature. Every sentence set before 
the pupil should be the expression of some thought he 



COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENT AR Y SCHOOLS. 21 

has before met in some literary production studied by him. 
Each sentence, then, relates to some whole which has 
stirred the pupil's feelings and given him new ideas and 
new experiences, and he recognizes, therefore, what 
thought in that whole and what shading in that thought 
the sentence set before him serves to express. Every sen- 
tence he deals with tends, therefore, to draw after it 
some fraction of the tide of feeling aroused by the study 
of the literary production. The detached sentence carries 
no such substrate with it. Herein is one way to interest ; 
for one phase of interest is the pleasureable tone of the 
mind in the exercise of its activity. 

The first work in analysis might be based upon one of 
the selections for literary study read in sixth-year 
classes. The sentences could be taken from this and 
some sentences might, if necessity required, be slightly 
adapted. It is not necessary to begin with such absurdly 
simple and unattractive sentences as, Bells ring, Dogs 
bark. The pupil can easily deal with sentences of some 
length, and can understand the office of a group of words 
amounting even to a clause, when used as a modifier, as 
easily as beginning with modifiers of one word. In other 
words, he may be led as the principle of economy would 
suggest, to deal with sentences of usual length, as to sub- 
ject and predicate, to deal almost at once with the three 
forms in which the modifier occurs, as word, phrase, or 
clause, and in the same manner with the direct object ; 
and so gradually extending the analysis. Of course the 
order is not the order of the text-books, but it is a ped- 
agogical order. 

The method to be employed in unfolding this gram- 
matical knowledge is that of the skilful questioning of 
the living teacher. It is to be principally analytic, rather 
than descriptive. 



22 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

Variety of Expressions and Incorrect English. 

Now, while the knowledge of grammatical structure is 
growing, not upon detached sentences, but upon sen- 
tences taken from some literary whole that the pupils 
have studied, the rhetorical positions of the elements of 
a sentence may be treated. These two t tings, then, 
grammatical structure and rhetorical positions, may be 
closely interrelated and the one made to aid the other. 
Side by side with grammatical analysis may be taken up 
variety of expression ; as, for instance, the transforming 
of an infinitive to a participle, a participle to a clause, re- 
placing the active form by the passive, an imperative 
mood by the conditional, a clause by an infinitive, and so 
on. Variety of sentence form may also be interrelated 
with the development of a knowledge of grammatical 
structure. All this is to find continued application in the 
composition exercises which go forward at the same 
time, making it all a living reality to the pupil. 

As soon as the pupil's knowledge of the parts of speech 
and of their modifications and their relations will admit 
of it, I should bring him face to face with specimens of 
incorrect English to set right, giving the best reasons 
therefore that may be adduced. I have no sympathy with 
those pseudo psychologists, who hold that a pupil should not 
see an incorrect form. Of course it must not be thought 
that I would not give the pupil exaggerated specimens to 
puzzle him ; but specimens of incorrect English he should 
deal with in the fashion described. 

Literature Study. 

The literature study in the seventh and eighth school 
years upon such works as " Snowbound," " Evangeline," 
" The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," "Rip Van Winkle," and 
Webster's, " Bunker Hill Oration," etc., may be closely 



COMPOSITION FOR ELEMENT AR Y SCHOOLS. 23 

interrelated with the composition writing, affording excell- 
ent opportunity for a simple study of diction. 

I have insisted in this article upon the actual use of 
English in writing, and a great deal of it, instead of study 
upon how English should be used, or how it may be used. 
Let me, in closing, add one qualification, and that is : 
At no point shall the teaching be such as to develop a 
fatal facility to use words at the expense of content of 
mind and definiteness of thought. 







3Sx 



€be Value of the )VIotor Hctivittes in 
Sducatioti, 

HE physical activity of children is a fact 
attested by common observation. The 
valu3 of physical activity in the education 
of children must have been recognized by 
Comenius, as this recognition seems to be 
implied in his maxim, " Learn to do by 
doing," for it is only upon the knowledge gained thru 
recent investigations and researches that we are able to 
comprehend the import of the Comenian maxim. " Learn 
to do by doing," has been controverted from the time 
of its enunciation by Comenius down almost to the present 
day. It has been discussed pro and con, and little new 
light came out of the discussion. The disagreement grew 
out of the fact, that there was not scientific knowledge 
enough to interpret the maxim, and so it became the basis 
of a long controversy. Many educators all the while 
believed in the maxim ; others repudiated it. But to- 
day we have sufficient knowledge to interpret and under- 
stand this maxim, and to remove it from the grounds 
where controversy has so long found it necessary to detain 
it. Its import, I trust, will become, in part, apparent to 
the reader from what I shall try to state concerning 
the demands of the motor activities in teaching. I shall 
be able to put before the reader more clearly these de- 



DEMANDS OF MOTOR ACTIVITIES. 25 

mands, and how the motor activities aid in mental devel- 
opment, if I ask him to recall the mental impressions he 
has received when his observation has centered upon a 
child in the few weeks following its birth. 

Impulsive Movements. 

All persons have noticed the physical movements of a 
very young child. These movements are principally of two 
kinds, and they are to be distinguished from each other by 
the way in which they are initiated. The first class in- 
cludes those movements which arise from some cause 
solely within the organism. The contractive movements 
made with the arms, the kicking movements made with 
the legs, the twistings and contortions of the body are for 
the most part movements of this kind, and are initiated 
by the discharge of nervous force from the lower centers 
of the brain. These movements are not directed by the 
child, but take place because the cells in the centers from 
which the impulses start become filled with cell-material 
gathered, of course, by reason of the nutritive and assi- 
milative processes. When these cells are filled they un- 
dergo some change, because they have reached the point 
of fullness. It is by virtue of this change that impulses 
to muscular action are sent out along the nerves con- 
nected with the muscular system. In all this, we have 
the building up of the cell, and then its breaking down, 
or, to speak in other words, the using up of the cell- 
material according to some rhythmic and mysterious law 
of nature. Every discharge from these impulse centers 
sets into activity some set of muscles, and as soon as the 
muscles act, a stimulus is returned to the brain. In this 
manner a large part of the nervous mechanism of the 
child, which at this period is relatively simple in its struc- 
ture, as compared with the nervous mechanism of the 



26 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

fully-developed adult, is brought into action, or made to 
function in a normal manner. 

Reflex Movements. 

The second class of movements constitute those which 
arise from some cause primarily outside the organism ; 
that is, from external stimulus. For instance, when a 
bright light is brought into the room where a young in- 
fant is lying, his head is turned toward the light because 
of the stimulus falling upon the nerves of the retina. 
There are, moreover, movements resulting from' sound, 
as a stimulus, from taste, from touch, and from smell as 
a stimulus. These movements are due to the effect of 
stimulus upon the organs of sense. 

Now such is the nature of the nervous mechanism that 
its extension and complexity of growth are aided by the 
very means which nature provides in muscular move- 
ments. The movements not only include the two kinds 
mentioned, but also other kinds, as, for instance, the 
instinctive movements. By virtue of all these movements 
the cells undergo modifications of development, and take 
on a deeper complexity of structure ; and the develop- 
ment of the cells in complexity is accompanied by the 
shooting out of more nerve filaments or connections, 
or as some neurologists hold, the opening up of connecting 
fibers, which, are there at birth but not developed. 

In the fully-matured child at birth the centers of the 
impulses, which are in the lower part of the brain, and 
their main connections, have completed their develop- 
ment ; but in the cerebrum only a comparatively few con- 
necting nerves are developed. There is also connection 
of the muscles, and a few sense organs with the central 
seat of consciousness. This central seat of conscious- 
ness is the surface layer of the brain, or cortex. In 
the surface layer of the brain are located the centers 



DEMANDS OF MOTOR ACTIVITIES. 27 

of sight, of hearing, of touch, of taste, and of smell, 
and the activity of each of the centers is quite apart, 
Flechsig holds, from the activity in any other center. 
In other words these centers of sense are each of 
them for the time being so many separate seats of con- 
sciousness. As the child grows, and the nervous mech- 
anism develops, these centers begin to push out nerve fila- 
ments toward each other, or to develop the fibers and 
filaments already there, and also to connect themselves 
with the lower regions of the brain, and with the spinal 
marrow. In the fully-developed brain, all the centers of 
sense are connected, and eventuate in a unitary action of 
all of them. These centers of sense are connected with 
the lower centers, and later certain higher centers be- 
come developed, whose office seems to be to control the 
lower centers. The contiol over the lower centers comes 
very slowly and the gradual acquirement of control over 
these is one of the immediate ends to be attained in ed- 
ucation. 

Flechsig's Theory. 

Flechsig has called those parts of the brain which lie 
between the centers of sense and the impulses, and into 
which parts of the brain these centers push out nerve 
filaments, the association centers. Association regions, 
however, would seem to be a better term, and less con- 
fusing. Of course, we must not think that all associa- 
tion comes about solely in these association regions. The 
cells in the centers, as well as their ramifying connec- 
tions thru these regions, are involved in association on its 
physical side. 

I have now accounted for the physical activity which 
the very processes of nature compel in the early stages 
of the child's development. But as the child develops, 
and his conscious life enlarges, this tendency toward 



28 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

physical activity still remains, guided somewhat by the 
child's consciousness and will, prompted by motives 
which rise and control him. These motives are capri- 
cious when regarded from the point of view of the ma- 
ture mind. But however this physical activity may 
spring out of the capricious motives of the child, and 
may result in associations, it is due, in fact, to an under- 
lying necessity of the child's nature. Unless there was 
physical activity, sensations and impressions could not 
be conveyed to the brain, and the progressive modifica- 
tion of the cells which compose the centers, and the 
shooting out of the filamentary nerve connections or 
the development of the nascent connections would not 
go forward. Physical activity, then, you will see, is 
necessary for the development, for the health, and for 
the unity of the nervous mechanism. 

Proper development of the nervous system thru phys- 
ical activity may be secured, some one will say, by a 
judicious provision of intervals of play for the child 
and youth. It may be granted that the proper amount 
of play would secure nervous unity to the individual. 
Modern researches, however, have shown us that the 
physical activity of the child, or, to speak more compre- 
hensively, the motor activities of the child, may be so 
employed as to aid largely in mental development, there- 
by making that mental development not only a fuller 
one, but rendering its attainment easier for the child. 
Attention. 

The employment of the motor activities enables the 
child to give attention the easier ; it aids largely in es- 
tablishing associations ; it furnishes all states of con- 
sciousness with a richer content. 

The reason why the child's attention can be held for 
a surprisingly long time, provided he is so employed that 



DEMANDS OF MOTOR ACTIVITIES. 29 

the motor energy may be expended in movement, 
seems to be found in the conditions already set forth ; 
namely, that there are several centers of cells not close- 
ly connected with one another, but with the main 
branches of the nervous mechanism. There is a con- 
stant discharge of motor energy into these main chan- 
nels of the motor system, in order to produce move- 
ment so that the nervous mechanism may be developed 
thereby. If, then, we can so employ motor activities 
as to make them a contributing part, or an accompani- 
ment in the child's lessons, we are enabled thereby to 
hold the child's attention ; but, on the other hand, if we 
do not employ the motor activities as an accompani- 
ment, or contributing part *in teaching the child, this 
energy which must be expended in movement, with- 
draws his attention from what we have in hand for 
him. 

The impulses to motor activity seem to be the domi- 
nating factor in the capricious attention of the child ; 
consequently, if we would hold the child's attention to 
any task, we must provide some motor accompaniment. 
In so doing, we use up the motor energy, which, by its 
very consumption, promotes the growth and develop- 
ment of the nervous mechanism. Moreover, by this 
consumption of motor energy in accordance with the 
normal functioning of the nervous system, we not only 
free the child from its otherwise disturbing influence, 
but give him at the same time a feeling of pleasure. 

Not only is the child enabled the easier to give his 
attention to any matter in hand by the employment of 
motor activities with the more purely intellectual efforts 
required of him, not only is this way the shortest way to 
develop to their fullest perfection the control centers, and 
to aid in the development and strengthening of the 



30 THREE STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

powers of will, but association and memory are largely 
aided by such motor means. 

Association. 

Association is made stronger, we well know, by in- 
creasing sense experiences and related mental ex- 
periences. If we wish, then, to strengthen the associ- 
ations and memory, we must give the child as many 
sense experiences about any object as possible, and as 
many experiences in which he perceives some thought- 
relation, as we can give him. Now, the motor . gives 
more sense experiences, and it enables the mind to per- 
ceive more relations, because the hands and the eyes 
are working together, and there is a progressive, de- 
veloping concrete, continually forming as the outcome 
of the conjoint use of hands and eyes. It will be evi- 
dent that the presentative and representative images 
are thereby enormously increased as to number. The 
representative images are also clearer. It follows, then, 
that the judgments formed thru discrimination and 
comparison are not only innumerably greater in total- 
ity, but they are also more accurate. Consequently, 
the motor makes clearer thinkers, because the pupil 
constructs more definite pictures or projections. And 
because of this reciprocal eifect of one power of mind 
upon another, all his thinking is more definite and ex- 
act. 

Mental Development Aided by Motor Means. 

No one will question the proposition that mental de- 
velopment is dependent upon the development of the 
central nervous system, or the brain and its attached 
branches. Altho the cells which constitute this system 
may not be increased in number after the birth of the 
fully-matured infant, the education of the child is always 
a matter of the development of more or less of thos e 



DEMANDS OF MOTOR ACTIVITIES. 31 

cells, and also of the establishment of more numerous 
connections between the centers. If, thru any sys- 
tem of school methods and prescription of studies 
a part of the potential cells of the brain remain undevel- 
oped, we have a brain of less power, a brain of less bal- 
ance, a brain less able to stand the stress which is sure 
to come upon it. Besides, many difficulties will be 
experienced when the higher development of the mind 
is sought. The greater the number of potential cells 
that are appealed to, and the more numerous the con- 
nections we attempt to establish between centers, the 
easier will it be for that brain to acquire the various 
forms of thought-activity which have resulted from the 
long intellectual development of the race. By the em- 
ployment of motor activity in teaching the child in our 
schools, not only is a greater number of cells called into 
action, thus increasing largely the pathways of inter- 
connection and filling in the association regions, but the 
reaction in many of the centers is rendered more complex 
because additional elements enter thereby into the re- 
action. Clearness of conception is dependent upon the va- 
riety and strength of the images fused in the centers dur- 
ing the reaction, whose consequence is the psychic product. 
What special application now is to be made of this 
knowledge in regard to the motor activities, and how are 
the demands which these motor activities make, to be 
met in the education of the child ? Seek in every subject 
of study, especially in the lower grades, to provide motor 
activity, at least as an accompaniment of study and of re- 
citation. If possible, however, invent means which shall 
use up the motor tendencies, and at the same time make 
them a contributing part in the more purely thought 
work required of the child. In short let some doing ac- 
company all the child's efforts to learn. 



MAR 



1899 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

021 729 511 7 £ 



